What’s the earliest major historical event you can remember happening?

[dmslr]

2 hours ago, Tetzlaff said:

The Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 (I was 11 and I live in Germany).

Were schools really closed in Germany because of it?

[smeghammer]

Probably the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977. I recall a piano-smashing contest at my local playing fields - all the bits had to fit through a car tyre.

[Tetzlaff]

2 hours ago, dmslr said:

Were schools really closed in Germany because of it?

 

I remember we weren't allowed to play outside for some days. It felt very unreal because I looked through the window and everything seemed normal, sunny day. My parents explained to me that you can't see the dangerous radiation. It felt scary, an invisible and incomprehensible danger.

[FractalBeast]

The destruction of the Stari Most bridge in Bosnia during the Yugoslavia war(s). Must have been around 4.

[TenenteZashu]

probably Hurricane Katrina, I was around 2 years old

[Dravencour]

Mine would have to be the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of the Cold War era. I was eight years old at the time.

[DooM Bear]

10 hours ago, Smouths said:

Side note- this is pretty dumb, but I recall being extremely anxious over the impending Y2K phenomenon because it conjured images of Descent for me, lol.

 

Hehehehe I remember going to my computer after hearing about all the Y2K stuff and changing the clock forward to 11:59 31/12/99 to see if anything happened.

 

It ticked over to 1/1/00 no problem and remember thinking “WTF!?! Did nobody else think to just set their computers clocks forward to see if something breaks?!?”

 

Felt like the smartest 10yo on earth XD

[cannonball]

Princess Diana’s death in 1997 (7 years old). 

[DOEL]

Same here, Princess Diana dying. I was 7 or 8. I also vaguely remember Desert Storm. I was really into American patriotic propaganda when I was little

[Dr. Toboggan]

9/11, Bill Clinton Impeachment, Hurricane Katrina, Not Another Teen Movie

[Mayomancer]

I was too young at the time so i don't remember 11/9, but i think i remember some of the big recession from 2007. I know i have some memories from the discovery of the higgs boson, and the arab spring/start of the syrian war

[spineapple tea]

Not old enough to see 9/11 happen, but just the aftermath of it and the scar it left. The first real event that event I remember was the market crash of 2008. My dad was a stock broker at Bank of America at the time meaning that every day he'd bring just a little bit more depression into the house.

[Rare Hatchiama]

Edited because I remembered something earlier than Columbine.  I remember watching the O.J. Simpson trials with my parents in 1995, I was 5 years old.

[kalaeth]

a bit portuguese specific, but the great fire in chiado, downtown Lisbon in 1988, I was 5 years old and remember having to leave my house because they were afraid the fire would spread more. The place that burned to the ground was an old warehouse that was standing since the 1880s as a commercial space, and several other 17th century buildings, in an area as big as 8 soccer fields but since the fire started in the early hours of the morning only 2 people died from it.

 

 

(edit: googling "incendio do chiado" will give you some other  awesome pictures from it)

[invictius]

Fall of the berlin wall.

[scalliano]

The 1984 miners' strike. I was 5.